


Sanctuary

by PrettyThief



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cats, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Jaime Lannister and a fluffy animal, Jaime Lannister and an eight year old, Jaime working out his mess, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22501063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyThief/pseuds/PrettyThief
Summary: Having recently come to terms with the sort of person his sister actually is, Jaime Lannister takes their son to visit the cats - and he is very muchnotattracted to the cat lady who runs the place.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 51
Kudos: 278
Collections: Jaime and Brienne Subreddit Fan Creation Challenges





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> For the Jaime x Brienne subreddit challenge: [Jaime, Brienne, and a cat](https://www.reddit.com/r/jaimebrienne/comments/eirmyx/now_open_jb_subreddit_fan_creations_challenge/). Thanks for such a fun and cute prompt, guys! 
> 
> And wow, this became _less_ angsty than I imagined it would be, which is quite the opposite of anything I've ever written!

Jaime had ducked just in time for the coffee mug to go whizzing over his ear. He wondered who kept buying Cersei ceramics; surely she should be running low at the rate she chucked them at his head.

He hissed her name like a warning, low and dangerous, straightening the line of his shirt with his good hand and tilting his chin upward, determined not to cede an inch of ground this time.

“Why are you still here?” she spat, crossing her arms over her chest.

 _Why, indeed?_ he wondered, glancing around the Baratheons’ ornate drawing room. It was, in fact, the very last place that he wanted to be. It was a fact that Cersei was very much aware of, and would no doubt take great pleasure in bringing up at every turn if he allowed it.

“Tommen,” he responded simply. The argument was old and the circles they danced around one another had long ago lost their thrill.

“We’ve been over this.” Cersei did not sound exhausted at all. To Jaime, her voice sounded much more like the excited trill of a cat before she took down her prey.

But he was tired. Not just of the conversation at hand or the morning that he had had so far, but of the entire dance Cersei made him perform. It had been not quite two years since his eyes had been opened to the sort of person she was–and the sort of person he was _not–_ but the dance had been going on for decades and showed no signs of slowing.

Jaime raked a hand through his curls, tucking the loose strands behind his ears and moistening his lips. There was no point hiding how he felt from her. She always knew, even when she pretended that she didn’t.

“He’s my son, Cersei,” he at last whispered, spreading his palms in front of him. He hadn't come to beg or plead, but it certainly felt like that was what he was doing.

“Would you _shut up_? What would you do if he heard you?”

 _Fight for him_ , came Jaime’s immediate thought, but “it wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s heard in this house, I’d wager,” came sliding out of his mouth instead.

He could not, _could not_ ever manage to position himself on his sister’s good side.

“Get out.”

“Cersei–”

“ _Get out!”_

Jaime shot her one last glare, for old times’ sake, but did as she asked–which also felt like old times.

His car, lean and sleek as ever but now with four doors and a booster seat in the back, was at the curb at the bottom of the stairs that led up to Robert Baratheon’s summer villa. He threw himself behind the driver's seat, settled the key into ignition and promptly slammed the back of his head into the headrest half a dozen times.

 _All of that for nothing_ , he thought.

It was rare that Jaime be permitted access to his "nephew" and no amount of cajoling seemed to ever convince Cersei that uncle and nephew bonding was _normal_. Her mind made up was as set in stone as the Hammurabi Code.

He was not sure how long he sat there, staring up through the sunroof and watching as fluffy white clouds tumbled out of view. Robert might come home soon and wonder what he was doing. Unlike the rest of the day’s events, that notion _did_ seem to thrill him.

 _Let him ask_ , Jaime thought, _maybe I'll tell him_. It would be messy and Cersei would just as soon kill him for it, but maybe then– _then_ he could have Tommen. His thoughts seemed to always circle back around to that these days.

He was startled from his daydream by a pair of knuckles rapping on the window of his car. Glancing up, he was met with the permanently scowling face of Sandor Clegane.

Jaime pressed the button to roll down his window, fully expecting Cersei's dog to growl at him to _get lost._

"I'm to go with you."

"You're to _what_?"

"You. The boy. Me," he said with some agitation, as though that explained things.

Jaime squinted up at Sandor, spring sun bright in his eyes. "Tommen?"

"Yes. Your _nephew_ should be along shortly."

As if on cue, a golden, pudgy boy of eight years old burst out the front door and bounded down the steps toward them. The vibrant smile on his face was easily recognizable as Jaime’s own– _before_ , when smiling came easy.

"Uncle Jaime!" the boy cried, racing up to stand beside Sandor, grasping the rolled-down window with sticky hands. "Mummy said we can go on an adventure if Hound comes!"

Jaime's eyebrows shot up at Sandor but he quickly smiled back down at his son, leaning his head toward him conspiratorially.

"Bet you can't get buckled into your seat in ten seconds."

"Can so!"

"Oh yeah? Ten! Nine!"

Tommen scrambled to the back seat and had himself buckled in by the time Sandor had settled into the passenger seat of Jaime's car.

"Where to?" Jaime asked the rearview mirror as he ignited the car into life.

Tommen was silent for an uncharacteristic span of time. "I can pick?"

Jaime's smile almost faltered. "Of course you can."

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere." Jaime grinned.

"Not _anywhere_ ," Sandor grumbled, but Jaime ignored him.

"Okay. I want to go see the kitties. Can we… can we go see the kitties, Uncle Jaime?"

The boy sounded so apprehensive to voice such an innocuous question, Jaime thought he could feel his heart shatter in his chest.

" _Yes_. We absolutely will go see the kitties."

He put the car in drive and didn't stop smiling at the incessant chatter coming from behind the passenger seat the entire way to the animal sanctuary.

"Oh my _goodness_ ," Tommen exclaimed as the three of them pushed through the revolving doors beyond the cat-shaped façade of the building.

The foyer was larger than Jaime expected with a desk on the far end lined with treat jars, T-shirts for sale, and a scrappy looking orange cat snoozing on top of a stack of books. On each side of the room, tall glass windows revealed play rooms full of a variety of cats.

"I'll be outside. Allergies," Sandor said, sneezing as he backed out the door.

"Where to first?" Jaime asked very seriously.

Tommen's green eyes went huge. He slowly took Jaime's hand, as though he hardly realized he was doing it. The warmth of their joined hands gave Jaime a pleasant fluttering sensation that he was not quite accustomed to. Perhaps it was a feeling from childhood, holding his own mother's hand, or the fire in his belly as he wound a football down the pitch–only gentler, softer, _safer_. Whatever it was, it had been long ago forgotten.

"This one!" Tommen called, suddenly breaking free and racing toward one of the rooms and throwing it open.

Jaime chuckled and watched the boy roam from cat to cat, scratching ears and chins as he went along, as though he were the high septon of cats and they were all his adoring subjects.

"He's cute," came a voice from behind him.

Jaime smiled to himself before he turned around, hands in the pockets of his jeans. When he did turn, he was certain he looked every bit as plainly startled as he felt.

The person was a woman, or at least mostly seemed like one. Tall and broader than him with lank and colorless hair, more freckles than not, and a nose so crooked that it almost seemed to zigzag across her broad face. It all fell secondary to her eyes, one moment alight with a smile but quickly dimming at the look that must have been on his face.

" _Oh_ ," he heard himself say, his eyebrows shooting up. He seemed for the space of several seconds unable to move his gaze from the blue of her eyes, ensconced by long lashes that only served to partially obscure emotions that swiftly came and went like a summer storm–pleasant then hurt then professionally pleasant again.

"Your son," she said quizzically, "he's cute."

"He's not–" Jaime hesitated long enough to look around at Tommen, who was sitting cross-legged in front of a cage and talking animatedly, "–he's not had much exposure to pets."

 _My son_.

He had never had the truth set before him so plainly by anyone who was not family. Even with Tyrion, who he was sure _knew_ , it was a topic they did not bring into the light; Tommen was their nephew, Cersei was their sister, and their family was only as dysfunctional as any other. Nothing more.

Hearing it now, though, gave Jaime a peculiar feeling: dread, to be sure, but mingled with a traitorous and tingly sort of comfort. It was not, he reflected, a pleasantness that he deserved to feel.

The pair of them watched Tommen for a moment in a silence that felt oddly calm to Jaime; a still and comfortable sort of quiet that he had certainly not expected to find at a cat sanctuary. For his part, Tommen seemed to be babbling to the same poor animal.

"So, do you have a name?"

He turned to look at her, and found himself trying not to smile at this stranger's blotchy, ugly blush as it crept up her neck and settled into her cheeks.

"Brienne Tarth," she said, an edge to her voice that suited the hard cut of her jaw but not the shy tint that colored it. "This is my rescue."

The way she said it–" _my rescue_ "–was so full of obvious, unabashed pride that Jaime could not help but smile then. Part of him wanted to mock her; she was the very picture of the lonely cat lady stereotype. Another part of him felt buoyed by how much she clearly loved her job. No one should take that much satisfaction from _work._ For Jaime, such feelings were long gone.

"Jaime Lannister," he replied reflexively, holding out his hand.

He let it fall when he realized what he had said and the context in which he had said it. The color drained from his face in a single dizzying second.

Brienne Tarth's eyes widened and briefly flicked to his gloved mechanical right hand. Her head snapped back to Tommen, still talking to the cat. She seemed to have put it all together just as quickly as Jaime had.

Jaime Lannister, famed former footballer and heir to the Lannister dynasty did not have a son. He _famously_ did not have a son–or a wife, or a girlfriend, or children of any kind. The fact that he was in his late thirties with no family of his own had escaped the attention of exactly no one.

"Please don't tell anyone. He doesn't know and his mother doesn't want him to."

It was an absurd request. A story like the one he had just placed into her lap, practically gift-wrapped, could bring in enough money to provide sanctuary to every single mangy old cat in King's Landing. But Jaime was tired of lies.

"You have my word," she said earnestly.

He found himself wanting to believe her, this oddity of a woman. He could not and did not trust that anyone would keep such a secret for him, but it surprised him how much he _wanted_ to believe it.

"I could open the cage for him," Brienne said into the awkward silence that had fallen between them.

Jaime agreed and followed her inside the enclosure, unsure what else he could actually do about the probability that both his life and the lives of his family members would be destroyed very soon.

"Uncle Jaime!" Tommen's loud whisper barely contained his excitement. "Look at this kitty. His name is Ser Pounce!”

Jaime made a point to ignore the sympathetic look Brienne was attempting to bestow upon him, instead allowing her to unlock the cage while Tommen rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He had never needed anyone’s sympathy–not when he left football following the accident, and not now.

She then crouched down to Tommen's eye level, her long fingers intertwined in the bars of the cage door to hold it shut. "Hi there. What's your name?"

His son gave him an uncertain look, as though asking permission. Jaime inclined his head, keeping his face serious for fear that he might give away how much he savored the brief moments of parenthood afforded him.

"Tommen," he said, suddenly shy. "What's yours?"

"Very nice to meet you, Tommen. My name is Brienne." She smiled affectionately, all large lips and buck teeth, though the boy did not seem to mind. "Would you like to pet Ser Pounce?"

" _Yes_." Tommen's eyes were wide and serious, his voice almost reverent.

"Can you be very gentle? Ser Pounce is very sweet, but he has a broken leg. You don't want to hurt him."

Tommen nodded, his solemn-faced little septon. When Brienne swung the door open, he approached with every bit of care and gentleness that Jaime knew neither Cersei not Robert possessed.

It made him wonder how the boy had come to be so kind and empathetic when the Barartheon household was so very much the opposite. _He certainly does not get it from me._ Tommen barely knew him, even though Jaime had made strides to change that; his efforts had mostly been in vain. Cersei was too paranoid–too _vindictive_ , he had recently come to realize.

"Do you want to pet Ser Pounce, Uncle?" the boy was grinning up at him so sweetly that there was no way Jaime could say no.

He lowered himself down to one knee and scratched the cat behind an ear. Jaime caught himself smiling when the orange ball of fur closed his eyes and butted his head against the heel of his hand.

"Isn't he _soft_?"

"Yeah, buddy, he is.”

Jaime shifted on his toes and traded his left hand for the mechanical, scratching along the cat’s back. The purring sent pleasant vibrations up the metal until it met his arm, spreading out into him like tendrils of sunlight. The sensation recalled to him his boyhood spent chasing cats around the estate at Casterly Rock, until Cersei had been scratched by one and demanded he leave them alone if they were going to keep playing together.

“Do you think I could take him home?”

Jaime sighed, dropped both hands to his lap, and turned his full attention toward his son. His bottle green eyes seemed to be straining under the determination to bring his new friend home with him. Jaime thought his heart might actually burst from the sight of him.

“I don’t think that would work, Tom.”

“But Mummy _listens_ to you. Father says you’re the only one she’ll listen to.”

He frowned and, lost for words, pulled the boy to his chest for a tight hug. It wasn’t true, whatever Robert thought. _Cersei listens to no one and especially not me_.

He tried a different tack. “Sandor’s allergic. You wouldn’t want the Hound sneezing all over poor Ser Pounce would you?”

Tommen sighed. “ _No_ …” he replied, giving up.

“Let’s you and me make a deal though. Ser Pounce has a long recovery ahead of him, so as long as he’s here–” he glanced up at Brienne then, who nodded, “–we’ll come visit him every time we’re together. And we’ll hope that he goes to a good family, even if that family isn’t us. Alright?”

“Alright,” Tommen agreed morosely.

Jaime straightened and took the boy’s hand in his own. “Now, how about pizza?”

That earned him a wide, snaggle-toothed grin, which felt like more of a victory than anything Jaime had ever won even at the height of his career.

As they walked back toward the door, Jaime hung back while Tommen went out to greet Sandor. Brienne was silently watching them from the corner of her eye as she pretended to straighten a rack of T-shirts for sale. Jaime stopped on the other side, hoping he didn’t seem to her as nervous as he felt.

“I won’t say anything.” Her voice was casual, and she still wasn’t looking at him from her place by the clothing racks. “I gave you my word. I meant it.”

Jaime scrubbed a hand over his face. “You do realize that can’t be good enough? Your word? I don’t even _know_ you.”

Her fingers slid down the length of the fabric that hung in front of her. Jaime crossed his hands behind the small of his back, watching her move toward him. For a brief, ridiculous moment, the bulk of her made him want to take a step backward.

“I think that you have been very nice today. But frankly, I don’t care that you’re Jaime Lannister. I don’t care that your nephew seems to be your son. I don’t care about the hand you keep hiding in your pocket or behind your back. I don’t care about any of … of _this_.” She waved a dismissive hand from his feet toward his face, making him feel very small and insignificant. “I’ve worked hard to be where I am, and I’m actually _happy_ with the work I do. So please just … don’t bring whatever drama you have here.”

Jaime bit his lip in a futile attempt to hide a grin. “Alright.”

Brienne Tarth blinked at him and, raising his eyes up toward hers, he realized she was actually taller than he was.

“Alright?”

“Yes, _alright_. I agree. No problem. Rest assured. You got it–”

She held up a hand with an annoyed look upon her face.

“I just want to bring my son to see the cat because my son likes cats. Is that okay?”

 _My son_. There it was again, for a second time with this woman.

She was staring at him through suspicious blue eyes. “Yes.”

“Wonderful." He began backing toward the door. “Well, have a good day, Brienne Tarth. Until next time.” He winked. _Gods, why did I do that?_

He left her where she stood then, entirely confused by his own actions even as he felt in better spirits than he had in quite some time. Outside, Tommen was admiring the novelty black cat facade of the building and Sandor stood next to the curb, a particularly sour look upon his face.

“The fuck are you grinning about, Lannister?”

“I think, Clegane, that I might adopt a cat.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally quite a bit longer before I realized it really did not need to be. Perhaps one day I'll clean up and add the rest. For now, thanks for reading! :)


End file.
